General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
I think the main design for 4e wasn't that you didn't get magical items with nifty powers, but that you had magical -characters- with nifty powers. Used to be in previous editions that if you weren't a wizard, you described your character by -what he had.- Fighters were distinguished by their gear and their randomly rolled attributes, not by any selections or uniqueness of the player; this was a failing of how fighters used to be handled because they were solely the result of luck or DM capriciousness. The player had little input at all as to where his character would develop.
Now, characters decide their own path of development, and items don't play as prominant a role as to the -abilities- a character can bring.
In 1e you described your fighter as 'I have a vorpal sword and magical plate armor that lets me teleport across the field, plus a shield that casts fear on my enemies.' In 4e, you're a 'sword and board fighter who specializes in mobility and tactical deployment. I have this cool maneuver that hits a guy, runs, hits another guy, then runs more...'
In the end, 4e is designed more around character than a shopping list.
I think some of my favorite items were the cursed ones. I miss cursed items a lot. Not because they messed around with the players ( I admit that that aspect can be fun), but because they represented a facet of magic that has been lost in 3rd and 4th edition: magic can be unsafe, It can be unpredictable. It can have results that were not intended. That, in my opinion, is what killed much of the mystery and mysticism of magic items, and magic itself, in the current editions. Magic has had all of the bugs worked out of it, for better or worse. It is now safe and entirely predicable.
I agree with many points made by the OP and others, but WHAMO! This one knocks it straight out of the park! Some of the BEST magic items for pure fun were the Wand of Wonder, Deck of Many Things, Bag of Beans, etc. My son and his friends play in a group I've run for years and these are BY FAR their favorite items.
The Wand of Wonder has saved them from TPK more than once but also made some more mundane encounters hilarious and fun, albeit more challenging at times.
The shear paranoia when picking from the deck is an absolute blast.
I think it also changed when magic items became a commonly traded commodity, but man, some of teh great chaos is just snuffed out of teh game and thrown to the Munchkins. I do feel 4e is trying to find a balance that 3e demolished, but it's just not there yet.
If the same modules was run in 3e/4e, without a doubt, most of those magic items would be sold and used to finance more mundane but more consistent/powerful items like +2 swords/armours/cloaks etc...
If the same modules was run in 3e/4e, without a doubt, most of those magic items would be sold and used to finance more mundane but more consistent/powerful items like +2 swords/armours/cloaks etc...
When run in 1st edition, a lot of those items were also, without a doubt, sold using the gp values of the magic items in the DMG. And in 1e, there wasn't even a distinction between making something to sell and finding it in a hoard to sell... the GP sale value was the same either way.
The difference between 3e and 1e wasn't the ability to sell items, but the ability to easily make (or commission) them.
__________________ Bill D
"There's a fine line between a superpower and a chronic medical condition."
- Doctor Impossible
I dunno... it seems pretty simple to me. 1E magic item were more "mysterious" because we had never seen them before.
In 1982... "Bracers Of Ogre Power raises my strength to 18/00?!? What?!? Are you kidding me?!? That's the greatest thing eve-- wait what-- Girdle of Hill Giant Strength raises my strength to 19?!? Oh my freakin' god!!!".
But now... we've had 30 years knowing what Bracers of Ogre Power do. So of course the mystery is gone. And when your DM says "you find a pair of bracers that infuse you with the power of the ogre...", we're all ho-hum.
And let's be honest here... even if all of you decrying 4E magic item design were to suddenly start playing 1E campaigns again... how many times would a DM hand you a supposedly "mysterious" magic item, only for you to discover that you already know what it was because you've had the rules for them for 30 years?
You are all looking for a nostalgia that you cannot get back, because you know Dungeons & Dragons. And it doesn't matter if you play 1E or 2E or 3E or 4E or Basic or Rules Cyclopedia or any of that stuff... because the "magic" of the game is gone. You already know everything.
You want to truly be surprised and filled with magic and wonder about an RPG again? Get your DM to pick up a game that none of you have ever played or even read... and have him run it for you. And make sure none of you players read the rules/setting/game. Then (and only then) will you have this nostaglic "magic and wonder" that you seem to crave.
Sure, nostalgia plays a part in it, but it goes far beyond that. Your overly simplistic presentation leaves out acknowledging the vast majority of information already posted. Then again, maybe you haven't really played much in the older editions.
They are GAUNTLETS of Ogre Power. Sorry thief and somatic spellchuckers, you are out-of-luck. They rocked, but also had a major drawback for anyone but the fighters.
They are GAUNTLETS of Ogre Power. Sorry thief and somatic spellchuckers, you are out-of-luck. They rocked, but also had a major drawback for anyone but the fighters.
Which was probably a good thing, since fighters also had a major drawback: that they were fighters
Joking aside, what drawbacks did the more powerful girdles of giant strength have for non-fighter classes?
(Hint: none.)
__________________ "Sometimes we buy books because we think we're buying the time to read them." - Warren Zevon
If you consider published adventures this is actually false. If you go back and look at any of the 1st ed classics, you will find that players will be veritable Christmas trees after surviving those scenarios.
This assumes a party searched every single room in the joint. In many of them, the goal was to get to the goal and get out alive. I've run "Against the Giants" a few times and all the Giants are never killed. Snurre got mega-critted early once and our sneaky little nemesis took a scroll of Raise Dead when the party holed up to heal and he grabbed some reinforcements and had some nasty surprises ready for them. They got through that alive, but didn't have much left for the chase and had to be careful heading for the Underdark. That Drow ambush I set in the cavern was downright wicked while not causing death, dropped two of the five to unconscious and some of the drow retreated to set traps if they tried to retreat back up themselves.
In the "House of Strahd" you just try to annoy Strahd enough to escape with your life. You don't get to do a concerted search of his castle to loot it.
This assumes a party searched every single room in the joint. In many of them, the goal was to get to the goal and get out alive. I've run "Against the Giants" a few times and all the Giants are never killed. Snurre got mega-critted early once and our sneaky little nemesis took a scroll of Raise Dead when the party holed up to heal and he grabbed some reinforcements and had some nasty surprises ready for them. They got through that alive, but didn't have much left for the chase and had to be careful heading for the Underdark. That Drow ambush I set in the cavern was downright wicked while not causing death, dropped two of the five to unconscious and some of the drow retreated to set traps if they tried to retreat back up themselves.
In the "House of Strahd" you just try to annoy Strahd enough to escape with your life. You don't get to do a concerted search of his castle to loot it.
Well, every gm runs his game differently. To get the best evaluation at the level of magical items expected to be looted from an adventure, you really only can look at everything that is available. Dependent on the GM, you will get some proportion of that. And even if only half of all the magic available in these adventures is handed out, the players will still be laden with magic by level 6.
Well, every gm runs his game differently. To get the best evaluation at the level of magical items expected to be looted from an adventure, you really only can look at everything that is available.
Not so.
The 1e DMG has rules that tell you how long it takes to search a given area, and how often wandering monsters occur (unless the module specifies otherwise). If a module has a time limit, you can determine exactly what percentage of the area can be searched within that limit. If the module does not specify that there are no wandering monsters, you can determine roughly how may additional encounters prolonged searching will cause, and what the average effects of those encounters will be.
A more in-depth analysis of any 1e module will show that the odds of finding all the treasure in most modules (while succeeding/surviving) is virtually nil, so long as the DM uses the searching times in the rules, and makes wandering monster checks in accordance to the rules/module text.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
Rust Monsters and Disenchanters were also in the hizouse, as were dragons where items had to save when engulfed in a breath weapon or disintigration ray.
The 1e DMG has rules that tell you how long it takes to search a given area, and how often wandering monsters occur (unless the module specifies otherwise). If a module has a time limit, you can determine exactly what percentage of the area can be searched within that limit. If the module does not specify that there are no wandering monsters, you can determine roughly how may additional encounters prolonged searching will cause, and what the average effects of those encounters will be.
A more in-depth analysis of any 1e module will show that the odds of finding all the treasure in most modules (while succeeding/surviving) is virtually nil, so long as the DM uses the searching times in the rules, and makes wandering monster checks in accordance to the rules/module text.
RC
So you are saying all this treasure was in the adventure, but the pcs were not supposed to find it?
Furthermore, given that most of the treasure was usually carried by defeated foes or located in treasure piles/chests, PCs loose out little (10-20%) if they do not spend time searching the dungeon.
Finally, nothing really keeps players from coming back and doing a thorough search after clearing out the section of the dungeon, assuming that wandering monsters actually have to come from somewhere and don't just pop out of empty air.
So you are saying all this treasure was in the adventure, but the pcs were not supposed to find it?
Absolutely. Items were placed, in many cases, to reward "good play", or to allow for the potential of being found. This isn't so different from the inclusion of "secret areas" that might, or might not, be found by any given group of adventurers. In the 1e era, these things were considered hallmarks of good design.
Quote:
Furthermore, given that most of the treasure was usually carried by defeated foes or located in treasure piles/chests, PCs loose out little (10-20%) if they do not spend time searching the dungeon.
Is this based on a "feeling", or have you actually examined the modules to come up with those numbers?
Quote:
Finally, nothing really keeps players from coming back and doing a thorough search after clearing out the section of the dungeon, assuming that wandering monsters actually have to come from somewhere and don't just pop out of empty air.
The 1e DMG has some discussion on monster populations, how areas re-fill, and how monsters react to PC incursions. A monster lair that is severely damaged, but that manages to stave off the PCs, might not be there when the PCs get back after licking thier wounds. Healing times in 1e play a major factor in this. If you look at, say, Keep on the Borderlands, and read Gary Gygax's notes on how the various humanoids deal with PC incursions, it is quite clear that failure to wipe out a group might mean that the survivors -- and the treasure -- are not there when the PCs come back.
Likewise, there is a dragon hoard example in the DMG that spotlights how, if the players kill the monsters and leave, others are very likely to come in and take what is left.
Of course, this assumes a game philosophy where the PCs are not special snowflakes, where the value of treasure (or encounter) is in its potential whether found or not, where wandering monsters are not considered unfun, where the treasure doesn't follow the PCs around until they pick it up in neat parcels, and where success and failure are determined by game play rather than by meticulously balanced rules that mandate certain types of success (wealth/treasure/magic) go hand-in-hand with other types of success (levels).
TSR-D&D was, from a game design philosophy standpoint, a very different animal than WotC-D&D. A large amount of treasure was available because it was expected that much of it would be left behind.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
Is this based on a "feeling", or have you actually examined the modules to come up with those numbers?
Based on having played or gmd many of them. And based on remembering how often i removed magic treasures because the adventures were too monty haul for my tastes.
Last edited by Harlekin; 13th December 2008 at 12:50 AM..
The 1e DMG has some discussion on monster populations, how areas re-fill, and how monsters react to PC incursions. A monster lair that is severely damaged, but that manages to stave off the PCs, might not be there when the PCs get back after licking thier wounds. Healing times in 1e play a major factor in this. If you look at, say, Keep on the Borderlands, and read Gary Gygax's notes on how the various humanoids deal with PC incursions, it is quite clear that failure to wipe out a group might mean that the survivors -- and the treasure -- are not there when the PCs come back.
Likewise, there is a dragon hoard example in the DMG that spotlights how, if the players kill the monsters and leave, others are very likely to come in and take what is left.
Of course, this assumes a game philosophy where the PCs are not special snowflakes, where the value of treasure (or encounter) is in its potential whether found or not, where wandering monsters are not considered unfun, where the treasure doesn't follow the PCs around until they pick it up in neat parcels, and where success and failure are determined by game play rather than by meticulously balanced rules that mandate certain types of success (wealth/treasure/magic) go hand-in-hand with other types of success (levels).
TSR-D&D was, from a game design philosophy standpoint, a very different animal than WotC-D&D. A large amount of treasure was available because it was expected that much of it would be left behind.
RC
I was not assuming the PCs would come back for treasure, I was assuming a scenario where every threat had fled or been killed by the players. At that point the player have ample time to tear the dungeon stone from stone to find every piece of treasure they overlooked before. If we take the earlier mentioned moathouse as an example, what is keeping the players from finding every bauble once they have killed all the cultists?
I would argue that TSR had very little design philosophy other than "that sounds fun" and most philosophy that is now ascribed to them is projected from our vantage point of 30 years game evolution. But that is a different topic.
I was not assuming the PCs would come back for treasure, I was assuming a scenario where every threat had fled or been killed by the players. At that point the player have ample time to tear the dungeon stone from stone to find every piece of treasure they overlooked before. If we take the earlier mentioned moathouse as an example, what is keeping the players from finding every bauble once they have killed all the cultists?
Hmmmm.....possibly (1) other events in the campaign world, (2) more cultists coming from the Temple of Elemental Evil, and (3) more interesting areas to explore. Also, once the moathouse has been emptied, the agents in the Village of Hommlet would certainly move to examine what remained.......
EDIT: I should also note that, within the context of 1e at least, it wasn't intended that the DM tell the players where there were no more threats in an area, or when they had found everything/missed something. Several modules include reinforcements, for example, that arrive after the PC's initial foray(s). Players who assume that they have killed all the opposition and begin tearing the dungeon apart stone by stone may well be in for a rude awakening.
Oh, yeah, and in 1e at least you have to shell out gold for non-adventuring downtime, which means that searching stone-by-stone can bleed you dry, unless you have a very clear idea that something is hidden in some particular place. And, since most dungeons are located in the wilderness, the DM should be rolling on the Wilderness Encounter Table to see if some monsters have located the PCs worksite. Use the rules in the 1e DMG for clearing an area/establishing a domain, and good luck.......
Quote:
I would argue that TSR had very little design philosophy other than "that sounds fun" and most philosophy that is now ascribed to them is projected from our vantage point of 30 years game evolution. But that is a different topic.
I would argue that reading the 1e DMG could (for many people) easily counter that argument.
EDIT: See also Melan's analysis of dungeon maps, showing the complexity/hidden areas of some earlier maps compared to the sterile "gotta hit every room"-type maps that you see in some adventures (from all eras). The real classics of almost any era allow multiple routes and the possibility of missing several areas.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
I must say that the first thing I do with any published adventure of any edition after the first read through, is go through with a black sharpie and mark out the magical items (and some treasure) I wanted to eliminate. There has always been more magical stuff in printed D&D than I like, even when I did have a much more magic item-rich campaign than I have these days.
Items were placed, in many cases, to reward "good play", or to allow for the potential of being found. This isn't so different from the inclusion of "secret areas" that might, or might not, be found by any given group of adventurers. In the 1e era, these things were considered hallmarks of good design.
I can say this much from memory Harl.
It was often very hard to ransack a place because early versions of D&D were dangerous to the characters in ways that later versions never imagined, or sought to entirely mitigate.
And to me that's what bothers me about later versions, though I think later versions also had/have some really positives attributes. But when the game itself is designed in such a way as to hand-hold players, and circumvent character danger, and "balance risk" (when in life do you really get balanced risk) in-game, and prevent you from dying, or getting too out of breath, well, you've missed one of the key elements of what separates Heroes from those who'd rather hire out their risk to more courageous types.
A fantasy game without a Hero willing to risk his head for others against things potentially far more dangerous than he is, (as opposed to just a powered up, bauble painted, self-interested mercenary who won't fight anything or anyone unless he knows the fight is a balanced and fixed one) well - that's like a magic item that's determined by how many pluses it sports rather that what kinda wonder it evokes.
As for what RC was saying about the potential of reward, rather than the assurance of reward, well that also reminds me of the fact that they call it treasure for a reason. It's valuable because you take a real risk to get it, or somebody else takes a real risk to keep it. Or both.
If there were no real risk and cost involved it would be a token, not a treasure - welfare, not wealth. And risk can always go wrong. You can fail. You can lose. Seems a radical idea these days, in-games and outside of them, but there was a day when it was the way things were.
But RCs idea about treasure being potential rather than assured also reminds me of this - Easter Eggs. They're excellent to find, but sometimes, you miss a few. And that's okay.
Hmmmm.....possibly (1) other events in the campaign world, (2) more cultists coming from the Temple of Elemental Evil, and (3) more interesting areas to explore. Also, once the moathouse has been emptied, the agents in the Village of Hommlet would certainly move to examine what remained.......
EDIT: I should also note that, within the context of 1e at least, it wasn't intended that the DM tell the players where there were no more threats in an area, or when they had found everything/missed something. Several modules include reinforcements, for example, that arrive after the PC's initial foray(s). Players who assume that they have killed all the opposition and begin tearing the dungeon apart stone by stone may well be in for a rude awakening.
OK, you may continue to believe that although even low level adventures hand out enough magic to stock a small magic emporium, most of the items listed in an adventure will not be found by PCs that are specialized in killing and looting. However, I hope your arguments made clear to other readers of this thread that this is not the most parsimonious assumption and that serious contortions are necessary to make it to your conclusion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raven Crowking
I would argue that reading the 1e DMG could (for many people) easily counter that argument.
RC
Really, a philosophy? I see an unorganized heap of underdeveloped, albeit often brilliant ideas. If there is one thing missing in the DMG it is a governing philosophy.
However, i do think that because of its chaotic nature, the DMG is a great projection surface. You will find a lot of things in there that support a given point of view, for almost any point of view.
Last edited by Harlekin; 13th December 2008 at 01:17 AM..
Reason: one more thing...
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
